Legacies: The Rise of Kronos [Legacies/PJO/HOO Crossover]

24- A Choice

The sound of monsters roared in the distance.

Olivia rolled over and got up. Her head was pounding. Magic flew through the air. It was storming, the rain was pouring, lightning struck monsters left and right.

Hope and Landon were fighting together as Hope flashed her hands sending bursts of magic disintegrating monster while Landon's magnificent flaming wings kept him off the ground as he throw bolts of flames with his flaming sword.

That was new.

Wait, was this the future?

Olivia started to run. She darted passed her friends and her fellow classmates as she began searching for Achilles.

Where was he?

An explosion of lightning hit a direct area.

There he was.

"Achilles!" She yelled to him.

Achilles turned around with wide eyes as the ground began to rip open between them like an earthquake.

"Olivia!" Achilles yelled as the ground erupted in front and behind her leaving her on a small island. "Jump to me!"

Olivia started to run but stopped as she neared the edge. She looked down and froze.

Lava lay at the bottom of the chasm while monsters began sprawling up the side of it, but that's not what terrified her.

What terrified her the most was the seven foot tall man climbing as well, Golden eyes with no pupil or white. His body was laced with bulging black veins.

He was terrifying.

He was Cronus.

"Olivia! Jump!" Achilles pleaded. "I'll catch you."

Olivia shook herself out of her trance and jumped across landing in Achilles arms.

For a second she felt comfort and safety.

He had bigger things to do as she rolled out of his arms.

***
Cronus laughed maniacally as he reached the surface and raised his weapon.

The temperature seemed to drop by ten degrees and time had seemed like it had stopped for a split second.

"I am unstoppable." He said breathing his first true breath of fresh air for a millennia.

His body began to radiate a golden color that nearly blinded me and caused us to look away as a concussive blast exploded and he disappeared.

Another concussive blast exploded directly above us as he had teleported to Olympus.

"I need to get up there." I said to Olivia.

She snapped out of her fearful state and nodded.

Together we ran and fought through the horde of monsters as we made our way to the Empire State Building.

The security guard was waiting for us at the bottom and he handed us a key as we approached him.

"Achilles!" Evelyn called after me.

"I'm coming with you." She said.

I nodded as we stepped into the elevator.

"Good luck." The man said to us as we shot skyward on an elevator trip that seemed much longer than the first time I had rode it.

As we reached Olympus we were shocked by what we saw. The once beautiful kingdom was on fire, bodies littered the marble pathways as shops and temples burned brightly.

Titan bodies littered the ground, we quickly moved through a backwards path to the throne room as Cronus caused havoc through Olympus as his hubris led him to believe he had already won.

"How do you know about this?" Olivia asked as we ducked through a small door on the backside of the throne room.

The Gods, both Greek and Norse were exhausted as they ate ambrosia and drank nectar in an attempt to heal themselves.

"What happened to you guys?" I asked shocking every one of them.

"Thank Gods you're alive." Hestia said to me as she worked on healing wounds. "Shortly after we had defeated the Titans, Cronus showed up."

"We were already weak from the first fight, we'd stand no chance against him." Zeus said admitting defeat for once in his life.

"Brother..." Athena said with a glimpse of Hope across her face. "You are our only hope."

It felt like the weight of the world had fallen on my shoulders.

Olympus shook a bit causing dust to fall from the throne room ceiling.

Time slowed and the room dropped a good thirty degrees.

Cronus was just outside.

I looked at the Gods. "You guys need to leave. If I can't defeat him, you need to heal so you may have a chance."

They all nodded as they flashed out of the throne room leaving me, Evelyn, and Olivia.

The doors flew open and Cronus strode in.

Evelyn and Olivia made a reckless dash at my grandfather who simply waved his hand freezing them in time.

"So you're the famous Achilles, the one who is fated to defeat me. Just like Perseus Jackson." He said to me.

We paced around each other.

His arrogance was dangerously high, it would be his downfall.

His dark scythe seemed to suck the life out of the air and I could feel my soul being drawn to it.

I charged in an attempt to catch him off guard... he was expecting it and he was clashed back and forth for a couple of long minutes before we separated again.

"Very good swordsman." He said to me. "Perhaps there's hope for you yet."

That's when it hit me, I couldn't beat him in a fight of power. Power was on his side. Intelligence was not, he was a deity. His lust of power and arrogance had always been the downfall of the deities.

I just had to use it against him.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

He looked at me with his golden eyes as the black veins pulsed ever slightly. "Jack was weak, he failed me in every way imaginable. But you are strong. You could join me you know, help me create a new world order. Without gods and deities."

"But with you at the seat of power." I said not liking his idea. "Like a king or a dictator."

He walked over the edge and watched the fighting below. 

I followed him to the edge playing along with his game as I watched as the monster army had begun to wear out my exhausted friends as they started to outnumber and over power them as they continued to climb out of the depths of Tartarus.

"What could you give me?" I asked him.

He looked at me and in that moment, I knew that he knew my weakness. My friends, he would use them against me.

"Your friends would be spared."